I think you can relax a bit. I have a couple family members that are pretty well-connected with this ongoing battle, and they say the Texas Monthly piece is way late to the party, and the matter at hand is pretty well decided now. I've been hearing about this shit for a couple years now. Apparently, to those in-the-know, conventional wisdom indicates that Perry lost and has made himself a lame duck, Powers, for the most part, won. Perry's chief toady on the Texas BoR is looking down the barrel of impeachment. Powers has the momentum firmly on his side now.
It was a pretty terrible episode though, and things were definitely shaky for Powers even as recent as 6-8 months ago, but the power he was threatened with losing has been mostly re-consolidated.
A&M was in a real tough spot too, as they have far more Perry toadies on thier BoR that were more than willing to toe the line and turn the state universities into a Degrees-R-Us bargain retail program. The combination of vocal resistance of some outspoken A&M professors, and the thought that since Texas wasn't going along quietly, "our academic standing will be left in their trail of dust if they escape while we go along with this nutty scheme" was enough to seemingly slow the momentum there.
For our part, Texas Tech, for once, actually enjoyed being the state university that the state government was kinda forgetting about, and spent the whole time plugging along on their heavy emphasis on new research programs. Sometimes it's good to be that school way out in Weat Texas.
It seems Houston, the other newly-designated National Research University
enjoyed being forgotten about as well.
Texas State and some of the others were never really affected, because they are closest to the model that Perry was talking about right now with their heavy focus on undergraduate education and modest research projects.
...
Sad that the rumors about Babers (the Longhorns sideline reporter) from a couple weeks ago were more or less true.
The best way to keep your sideline reporters from saying negative things is by fixing the fucking problems with the FOOTBALL TEAM, Mack. Not creating more disgusting Bill Little-type "yes" men to erect an ever-thicker wall of bullshit around you.